Online democratic campaigning is still in its infancy, with governments and campaign movements struggling to direct the large but unfocused support generated behind causes on social media, according to a new book by E-Government Bulletin editor Dan Jellinek. The use of citizen participation technologies by governments and official bodies continues to lag behind social media [...]

The whole of the public sector can be seen as “one giant open source project” whose development can take place collaboratively between citizens and officials, a former US White House official told a recent seminar hosted by social innovation company FutureGov. Ben Balter, a former Presidential Innovation Fellow in the White House, is leading development [...]

By Craig Thomler John Miri, former deputy to the chief technology officer of the US state of Texas, is markedly different from the stereotype of a government IT professional. Personable, approachable and one of the few tea drinkers remaining in the US, Miri was trained in physics but pursued a career in IT after it [...]

Electronic petitions have ushered in a new age of popularity for citizen petitioning unseen since the early nineteenth century, according to a new book by E-Government Bulletin editor Dan Jellinek. The historical comparison is made in “People power: a user’s guide to democracy in the UK”, published this week by Transworld http://amzn.to/1aXdRMT . The right [...]

By Dan Jellinek The right for a group of citizens to petition the people in charge directly (at first the monarch, and then Parliament), to ask them to put right something they feel is wrong, dates back to the Middle Ages. Its use grew until in the early nineteenth century tens of thousands of petitions [...]

Major failures in two pieces of high-profile technology that were intended to make the recent Kenyan national elections run more smoothly are to be investigated by a special committee of the Law Society of Kenya (LSK). The glitches in March meant the country had to rely on traditional methods of polling and vote-counting. Biometric voter [...]

One year ago, E-Government Bulletin published a special report on BeNeighbors.org, an initiative from the pioneering non-profit E-Democracy.org to connect communities in two neighbouring US cities – Minneapolis and St Paul, known as the Twin Cities – using online forums (see E-Gov Bulletin 346: http://bit.ly/XnE5T0). Funded with a 625,000 US Dollar grant, the project had [...]

By Craig Thomler Most governments use taxation to raise the majority of their revenue. In its simplest form, tax involves taking a share of the income earned by eligible entities, whether individuals or corporations, and placing the money in a pool. The government then decides how to spend this pool of money – on providing public services [...]

People who want to launch effective online movements must focus on building for the long-term, not on short-term viral phenomena, a global pioneer of online campaigning told a London meeting recently. Jeremy Heimans, co-founder of online petitions pioneer Avaaz (http://www.avaaz.org) was in the UK in November to launch Purpose Europe, the European arm of his campaign [...]

By Vineeta Dixit The advent of the internet, social media and mobile devices have changed the way citizens can engage with each other and with their governments. Across the world, governments are facing challenges to their legitimacy as citizens express a rising disquiet with corruption and non-responsiveness. In India, many innovative projects are underway using new technologies [...]

Electronic petitions to the UK government which receive more than 10,000 signatures will now receive a written government response, Leader of the House of Commons Andrew Lansley has announced. The relevant government department will write a response to each qualifying petition, which will then be posted alongside the petition on the government’s e-petition website (http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/) [...]

The first GovCamp specifically to focus on the challenges of digital participation in island communities, IslandGovCamp 2012, took place in Orkney (and on the internet) recently, writes Sweyn Hunter. It was organised by the Orkney ICT Forum, a professional association for people and organisations offering web, ICT and media and communications services in Orkney, which [...]

Governments around the world need to “rethink” e-government strategies, linking up departments and services to allow for greater emphasis on sustainable development, according to the United Nations E-Government Survey 2012. “E-government is at the core of building a strategic sustainable development framework”, says the bi-annual survey – conducted by the United Nations Public Administration [...]

Whether it’s advising a concerned mother on how to slow down local traffic or boosting takeaway pizza sales to kick-start a restaurant business, a new network of community forums is proving the real-life benefits that networked neighbourhoods can have for local communities and their residents. Developed by Steven Clift, founder of the non-profit community networking [...]

One of the pioneers of the use of the internet in democratic politics is running for political office in the US this month: Phil Noble, founder of PoliticsOnline, is bidding to become the next chair of the Democratic Party in his home state of South Carolina. South Carolina is a largely Republican state whose Democrats have [...]